


once upon a dream

by unhookingstarswithoutpermission



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Angst with a Happy Ending, Dreams and Nightmares, Fluff, Light Angst, Non-Binary Grantaire, Other, POV Alternating, Trans Enjolras, god it's been ages since i published something, i think that's all, r uses they/them, the relationship is kinda in the background
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-08
Updated: 2017-06-08
Packaged: 2018-11-11 07:25:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11143650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unhookingstarswithoutpermission/pseuds/unhookingstarswithoutpermission
Summary: With time, it's like the dreams start to make sense. It's like finally everything adds up: there was red because there was blood, and there was golden because there was hair, and there was powder because there were guns. Grantaire can't still catch up with it enough to turn it into an image, and they've been chasing it long enough that they get kinda bored and kinda hopeless, until they stop.or, the one where dreams are more than what they seem.





	once upon a dream

**Author's Note:**

> I've disappeared from this fandom for months. This is just a warm up.

Sometimes there are faded images slipping into their dreams, like really old photos, memories from another time. Even though they have a painter's eyes, they aren't able to distinguish lines from silhouettes from people. They do catch some bits of this nebulous picture, though. At times, it's splattered red against the frame; then it's gold, glistening against the rising light; then it's oil, or powder, or wood, and then it's black, like the nightmares that used to haunt them when they were a child.

Sometimes, in dreams, they can almost feel a phantom pain near their lungs, like the air has been punched out of them, like there's fire scorching the way to their guts. It's a feeling so similar to the one alcohol gives them, yet so different: alcohol works on them like fire and snow in succession, burning then cooling. Instead, this fire just keeps on burning, hurting, like its one purpose is to consume everything that's in its path.

What they can remember once they wake, they try to capture in paint. Mostly, they fail: dreams are slippery things made of shapes that don't quite make sense and noises that can't quite be heard. They're just human, they can't fight it.

Sometimes – somehow – he paints in streaks, red and blue and white, or red and gold, or black and gray. There seems to be no place for other colours in his mind.

 

* * *

 

Usually, he doesn't do sleep. It's just not his thing: the world isn't waiting for him, no, the world is running and he has to chase it if he doesn't want to see it tumble down at his feet.

(Usually, Combeferre retrieves him from their living room and forces him to bed and says, “The world won't fall over night”. Which is just an assumption, really, but Combeferre is also really strong and resilient and not to be messed up with if he hasn't had a full night of sleep out of worrying over his best friend.)

When he sleeps, though, he's so tired that he just collapses on his bed and falls into a coma-like state until Courfeyrac barges into his room and opens the shutters and starts singing at the top of his lungs.

Enjolras should really move out soon.

There are nights when he's particularly tired – after a successful meeting, or when he's gone out dancing and drinking with the whole squad – and he falls into bed and somehow gets a full eight hours of sleep. Those are the very few nights he gets dreams, and he's not sure if he loves them or hates them.

Some nights, he dreams of them all. He dreams of being with them, chatting or shouting, leading them in riots. When he doesn't dream that, he imagines his parents being proud of him, his younger sister smiling at him from the other end of the table.

There are also times when he dreams the end of a gun, the smell of blood, the weight of an hand in his, the sound of a gunshot. It's quick, frustratingly so, yet so, so very bright. It feels so real that he wakes in a pool of sweat, clutching the sheets in his hands, his ears ringing from the noise, and he doesn't manage to sleep any more.

 

* * *

 

Talking comes natural to Grantaire, especially after they've had a few glasses of whatever Jehan orders for all of them – “yes, it means you have to drink too, Marius” – which somehow always ends up being very alcoholic.

They are not a reserved person by nature, but they still feel that something so weird should only be said to people who won't judge them. That's how they end up narrating their dream to the whole table, which means Joly, Bossuet, Musichetta, 'Ponine and Jehan. They are all religiously silent while they paint a picture they can't really capture but with their words.

Grantaire still knows how to put walls up: that's why they talk only when they're all various levels of hynebriated, and that's how they end up being left alone with Jehan, since the others seem to think that Grantaire must have daydreamed all of it.

Jehan approaches them carefully until they end up sitting on their lap even though there are so many vacant sits because hey, they crave contact and them and Grantaire are close enough that this isn't awkward.

“You know”, they whisper, which makes them nearly inaudible over the crowd, “I have dreams like that too. Dreams I can't quite catch, no matter how hard I try. I hear gunshots, mostly.”

They shrug and leave Grantaire there.

 

* * *

 

Enjolras isn't much of a talker, really. If he gets very passionate he can talk quite a lot, of course; but when it comes to personal matters, he's as closed off and guarded as can be.

When the nightmares begin, he doesn't even give them enough attention to be worried. When the nightmares get worse, he tells himself he'll just have to suck it up and plan out his sleeping schedule. Combeferre is the only one who knows, since he's a very light sleeper and he has found Enjolras wondering through their apartment at 5 am way too many times for it to be a coincidence, but he's sworn never to tell a soul.

When he looks at himself in the mirror in the mornings, he pulls his hair back and spends minutes studying his ever growing eyebags. They aren't so noticeable, but they are there: he can see a difference, even if sometimes he wonders if he's just tricked himself into seeing it, since so many of his friend don't notice. Maybe that has to do with the fact he doesn't act any different when he hasn't slept, but there's no way to really be sure.

The thing is: maybe no one notices, or maybe no one says anything because they all know how prickly he can get at times.

The thing is: maybe no one notices, but Grantaire does. They are so very close but not kissing yet, and Enjolras is just basking in the feeling of being loved and shivering from their fingers tracing the lines of his face. Then Grantaire's fingertips catch on the dark bags under his eyes and they don't have to talk, because somehow Enjolras knows.

 

* * *

 

With time, it's like the dreams start to make sense. It's like finally everything adds up: there was red because there was blood, and there was golden because there was hair, and there was powder because there were guns. Grantaire can't still catch up with it enough to turn it into an image, and they've been chasing it long enough that they get kinda bored and kinda hopeless, until they stop. It's not like they dream of that still memory so often anyway, and even if they did, they still find it a bit creepy, a bit fascinating but still very much a dream.

They haven't told anyone but Jehan, because somehow the description they had given while sober catches up with some of it. Yes, Jehan dreams of blood and guns, dreams of flags and flower. They don't dream of golden locks, but they do picture tall piles of wood. “Almost like barricades”, they say, but then they shake their head. “But it's just a dream.”

There's a moment Grantaire believes them. They overlook the coincidences, they overlook the nagging feeling that there's something they are forgetting or ignoring. But then Jehan, receptive as only they can be, asks in a whisper, “Is it?”.

Grantaire decides to ignore the matter as long as they'll lack a better answer.

 

* * *

 

Now, when Enjolras dreams, voices haunt him. They're murmurs; sometimes, he can't even understand what they're saying; yet, he _knows_ the voices. He hears them every morning when he wakes and every night when he goes to sleep, and they are just as lovely as they are sad, so very sad that he feels he's going to go crazy just from hearing them.

When he first hears the voices of his friend in the background of his dreams he wakes up frozen, almost like his nightmares have gained the faculty to stretch out into reality. He doesn't understand the words, but he understands the suffering; deep down he knows – he's certain of it as he's certain that the sun rises in the east – that it's him who has caused it. He just wants it all to stop, yet it seems to be everlasting, stretching into an unending echo.

He doesn't remember the first time he's woke up screaming: he just knows he's glad that no one seems to hear him, not even Combeferre, and that he has the presence of mind to muffle his voice in his pillow. This doesn't work, though, when he first sleeps at Grantaire's. In his dream, it's them who appear in front of him and accuse him of killing them, and Enjolras feels so useless, because their corpse is lying just at his feet and even though he wasn't the one who pulled the trigger, guilt claws at his chest.

He wakes screaming for them, and they are quickly coaxing his trembling body into a hug. He gives no other explanation than, “I had a nightmare”, and Grantaire presses their lips against his shoulders and doesn't reply.

 

* * *

 

Painting is fairly useless and inconclusive, but at least it's therapeutic. Grantaire's hands ache for their brush as soon as they wake up at 3 in the morning and realise they aren't going back to sleep any time soon. If there's something they hate it's lying in bed, struggling with insomnia, and if they were alone they would already be up and working.

There's a beautiful, deeply asleep Enjolras using their arm as a pillow though, and Grantaire's heart breaks at the thought alone of waking him up accidentally when he's sleeping so peacefully that he almost looks like an angel. But there's also an itch in their limbs and they know too damn well that they'll get restless if they stay still any longer, so they rise from the bed as softly as they can and pad their way to the living room.

An half-finished canvas stares back at them from a corner of the room, but they aren't feeling like ruining what could be an almost acceptable portrait. They retrieve their sketchbook and sit cross-legged under the only lit lamp.

They don't know how long it's been when Enjolras sits in front of him, but it's still dark and he hasn't even turned on the light, and that's what gives them the courage to put away their work and search for Enjolras's body. Enjolras moves willingly until he's sat between the v of their legs, and doesn't stop until he's resting his head on their chest, almost like he's searching for their heartbeat.

“Bed was cold”, Enjolras says. Grantaire's heart bursts; they don't know if he feels it, and a voice in the back of their head suggests that _of course the bed was cold, they're like a damn heather_ , but maybe Enjolras didn't mean it that way and that _maybe_ makes their insides flutter.

“Why are you awake?”, they ask, tired and yet so content to have this moment.

Enjolras's face is still hidden, but Grantaire can feel him press closer to their chest. “Nightmare”, he mumbles.

“You want to tell me?”

And Enjolras is silent, so still Grantaire fears they've fucked up or he's fallen asleep. They don't break the silence, though; and it's minutes before Enjolras musters the courage to talk.

Once he starts, there's no stopping him. He tells of guns and he tells of bodies, of corpses and of ghosts, of flags and of bayonets, of devils and of hell and of everything he's guilty of.

And there's something, like a light, flashing brightly on Grantaire's memories. Enjolras, his warm body and his frail voice, they're familiar like they've never been before. Suddenly, Grantaire remembers another body and yet the same voice, but they don't understand; then they feel the taste of absinthe burning their throat, and unyielding lips rough against theirs, and the arms holding them turn broader and stronger, yet so soft.

They don't know what Enjolras remember, of if he remembers anything at all; maybe he had all figured it out before, and he didn't tell them because they would have thought him insane. For the briefest moment, Grantaire fears rejection once again. They think they will be miserable because they knew no other way to be, and they know they will be alone because that scorching loneliness is still buried deep in their body.

And that's when Enjolras probably hears their worries because of how loud they're thinking, and he collects them in his arms and kisses them in the gentlest of ways. Grantaire might not remember everything – of course they don't, they still feel like most of the memories don't make sense, aren't they lucky – but they know, deep down, that them and Enjolras never had this. They can almost sense how scared Enjolras is of losing this, even if they haven't yet agreed on what _this_ exactly is, but the words to define it are always been there, since they first laid eyes on him.

This world isn't kind; it's still the world that killed them, both of them, along with all their friends – and if Grantaire wasn't crying before, they sure are now – but they hadn't _this_ , then, if not in the last moments. Maybe this is why they get a second chance, or maybe it's just because their fight isn't over. Maybe it's just _because_ ; the world doesn't have to make sense.

In the morning, there will be a lot of questions; there will be a careful collecting of puzzle pieces and a dangerous stitching them together. But the sun isn't risen yet, and Enjolras might be crying just a bit – he has hidden his face in their chest again.

Grantaire loves him even more than they had loved him before, so they take it upon themselves to cradle him and kiss away the doubt and the fear and the blood.

 

**Author's Note:**

> i would be really really glad if you left me a comment!  
> hmu on [tumblr](http://unhookingstarswithoutpermission.tumblr.com/) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/imonthetardis)


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